Forleda's Kin Lee said China's market for eco-plastics remains weak, although the firm is looking to boost exports to developed economies.

At least that was the view from the Eco Expo Asia trade show, held Oct. 28-31 in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong-based injection molder and recycler Fukutomi Co. Ltd., for example, said most of the orders for its corn-based polylactic acid packaging come from European, American and Japanese customers.

Chinese customers sometimes call to inquire, but as soon as they hear that the “green” material costs double or triple that of oil-based plastics, they quickly lose interest, said Commercial Director Mary Cheung.

“Environmental protection always costs money,” she said.

Still, the company said demand for its exported PLA products has doubled this year, and it’s making investments in new PLA molding capacity at its Shantou, Guangdong province factory. It sees that market as a significant part of its future, even if it is in other countries, she said.

Similarly, Hong Kong-based PET recycler Forleda Eco-Services Co. Ltd. said that most of the market for the recycled PET bags, clothing and other products under its GPET brand are aimed at customers in Europe and North America.

“In Asia, they are quite concerned about the price, not what the material is and whether it is recycled,” said Kin Lee, marketing manager. “Asia is not that active. In the U.S. and Europe, the market is different.”

Still, he said, there are some signs of rising demand locally.

In Hong Kong, demand for Forleda’s reusable, recycled PET shopping bags has risen 50 percent since that small, self-governing region of seven million people in China imposed taxes on plastic bags at grocery stores.

But in the larger mainland China market, which started its own plastic bag restrictions last year, demand has not increased.

Mainland consumers, he said, don’t have as much money and that has proven to be a hurdle for Forleda bags, which are at least 30 percent more expensive than other reusable shopping bags, made from virgin polypropylene or other materials.

“In mainland China, it is not the right moment,” Lee said. “Their green sense is not that high. It may take four or five years.”

There is also less regulation on environmental claims in Hong Kong and China than there is in Europe or the United States, and that leads to more misleading claims, according to Kammei Thomson, director of Biobag Australasia Pty. Ltd. in Sydney, which makes garbage bags and compost bags from corn starch material.

She said one large Hong Kong supermarket chain has been using PE bags with additives that break apart the bag, and claiming that the bag is “biodegradable.”

That claim would meet with government scrutiny in some European countries or American cities, she said, because polyethylene is not compostable. But in China, there’s little regulation of such statements, Thomson said

She said Biobag’s products are fully compostable in line with the EN 13432 standard.

While there are major price hurdles in China’s “green” plastics market, some of the companies said they are making investments in anticipation of future developments.

Fukutomi’s Cheung said the company is seriously considering buying equipment to make recycled PET pellets to food grade standards of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, initially to export, but it expects demand for such material to increase in China.

Similarly, Beijing and Shanghai have started pilot projects to compost food waste in 20,000 households, and that could help seed the market for compostable plastic bags, said Wilson Tse, marketing director for corn starch-based resin maker PSM (HK) Co. Ltd. of Wuhan, Hubei province.

He agreed that China’s internal market is limited, and most of the company’s material is ultimately exported, even if it’s sold initially to a Chinese bag extruder or injection molder who then exports the final product, such as plastic cutlery.

“Honestly the local consumption is not that much,” Tse said. “Asia is just starting, especially in China. The governments are now encouraging consumers.”